The invention pertains to a device for vertically holding pipes, which comprises a base element in the form of a segment of a cylinder, a door element pivotably connected to the base element by at least one pivot joint, and a fastener assembly mounted opposite the pivot joint.
These types of devices are used, for example, to help manage drill pipes on offshore drilling platforms. The drill pipes surround the bit and are lowered from the drilling platform. Drill pipes typically consist of a large number of pipe segments connected to each other to form a string. The individual pipe segments are connected one by one to the drill pipe already being held by the drilling platform and then, after the connecting procedure has been completed, they are lowered from the platform. To conduct the holding and lowering procedures, special devices are required to prevent the pipe from slipping out and thus sinking into the sea.
In a normal application, the door element of the device is opened and then typically pushed laterally over the pipe to be held. The door element is shut, and then the fastener assembly is locked to guarantee that the pipe will be held securely.
If the operating crew believes that the fastener assembly is reliably locked and then proceeds to use the device to hold the pipe even though the fastener assembly is not in fact properly locked, the drill pipe will slip out, and in the least favorable case the entire drill pipe will be lost.
To avoid incidents such as this, display elements are already known, which are used to indicate that the fastener assembly has been properly locked. Because of the large number of conceivable operating situations, however, these elements do not offer the necessary reliability.